A+ content, and what to put in it
Below the description on an Amazon product page there is often a band of images with text in them: a look inside, the series in order, a photo of the author. That is A+ content, and authors can add it through the publishing dashboards at no cost.
Most books do not have it. That is the whole reason to bother.
What it is for
Not repeating the blurb. The reader has already read the blurb — that is why they are still scrolling.
A+ content answers what comes next, which is a short and predictable list of questions:
- What does it look like inside? Especially for anything illustrated, large print, or formatted with care. A page spread here sells a book that a description cannot.
- Who wrote this? A photo, two or three lines, and why you are the person writing this book.
- What else is in the series? In reading order, with covers. This is the module that earns its place fastest, because it sells a second book to someone already buying the first.
- What did people say? Short pulls, attributed, well below the fold.
If a module does not answer one of those, it is decoration.
Images are the medium
The mistake is treating the modules as text boxes that happen to have pictures. They are the reverse.
Make images that carry the message. A photograph of the open book at a readable size says "the interior is typeset properly" faster than a sentence claiming it. A row of three covers says "there is a series" with no words at all.
Do not paste paragraphs into a picture. Text baked into an image is not searchable, not selectable, and not readable at phone size. Keep the words in each module's own text field wherever the module has one, and keep the words in the image itself to a short line.
Set type larger than feels right. These images are displayed a few hundred pixels wide on a phone. Type that looks small in the editor is unreadable there, so set captions larger than feels right and check them at phone size.
Match the book's palette. Pull the colors from your cover so the section reads as one page rather than a cover with a slideshow bolted underneath. The nearer it looks to the cover, the more it reads as a publisher's page.
In the A+ Creative. It builds A+ images at the exact module sizes from your real cover, so the palette matches the book by construction and the files export ready to upload. Start a book → · about the tools
The constraint most authors hit: fixed pixel sizes
Amazon's modules are not flexible containers. Each one has a fixed size, and an image that is not made for that slot is cropped by the layout or refused at upload. This is where most first attempts die — a beautiful 1600 × 900 graphic goes into a slot that is not 16:9, and the layout takes the middle of it.
Build every image to the slot. Some current module sizes:
- Standard image header with text — 970 × 600, with 1940 × 1200 recommended.
- Standard image with a text overlay — 970 × 300, with 1940 × 600 recommended.
- Company logo — 600 × 180, with 1200 × 360 recommended.
- Single image and sidebar — a 300 × 400 main image plus a 350 × 175 sidebar image.
Notice the pattern in the recommendations: twice the module size in each direction. That is not padding for cropping — it is for high-resolution screens, where an image supplied at exactly the module size is displayed at half the pixel density it needs and looks soft next to the cover beside it. Supply the doubled size whenever the slot offers one.
Also notice the aspect ratios. 970 × 600 and 970 × 300 are not the same shape, so one design does not move between them; and the sidebar pair is portrait next to landscape, which catches people who build both at once.
Amazon changes its module catalog from time to time — modules are added, retired, and resized. The slot you are filling is the authority. Read the size the dashboard states for that module today, and build to it.
Before you upload
It goes through review. A+ content is checked before it appears, and approval is not instant. Plan for it — this is not a change you make the morning of a promotion.
No prices. Not in the images, not in the text, not "only $2.99 this week." Prices change and Amazon does not want them baked into a page.
No links to other stores. No other retailer's name, no URL to your own shop, no "also available at." A link to another book on Amazon is fine; a route off Amazon is not.
Claims have to be true. "Bestseller," "award-winning," "#1" — if you cannot point at the list or the award, do not write it. This is both a review criterion and the fastest way to lose a reader who checks.
Check it on a phone first. That is where it will be seen. If the type in an image is not comfortable at that size, it is not comfortable.
Where the images come from
You already have most of them. The cover supplies the palette and the artwork. Interior pages supply the look-inside module. A 3D render of the wrap supplies the header image, which reads as a physical object in a way a flat cover file does not.
In the A+ Creative. Pair it with the Mockups tool, which renders 3D shots of your actual wrap, and the Social Pack, which makes a 15-second vertical video and stills from the same cover — one set of assets for the product page and the feed. Start a book → · about the tools
Make yours
Everything here is built into the tools, and they are free to use: name your book, bring your manuscript or your artwork, and work as long as you like. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next: Book mockups that sell · Early reviews and ARCs · More: How to write a blurb that sells the book · Categories and keywords · The A+ Creative →